May 2011

May 27, 2011

Which gas stations in the United States are the best to use concerning the environment? I don't want to be buying from gas stations who buy from oil companies that pay lobbyists to deny climate change.

—Katrina in San Antonio

Rating the oil companies is a tricky—and potentially embarrassing—endeavor. In 2008 in my otherwise reliable book I ranked BP as one of the best companies, only to watch it plunge to the bottom of the barrel with its unprecedented toxic fiasco in the Gulf of Mexico. The assessment effort is immensely complicated by the variety of activities and locations involving these global industries, not to mention the difficulty of rating the different headache they create (and sometimes help remedy. What’s worse, Royal Dutch Shell’s pollution of air and water in Brazil, or Exxon’s opposition to policies to curb global warming? Should Valero be downgraded because it pumped a lot of money in to a referendum to axe California’s tough restrictions on greenhouse gas emissions? Should ConocoPhillips move up a notch because it donates money to save migratory birds, or be downgraded because of a rather nonchalant approach to cutting its emissions?

The only bedrock certainty I have is that these outfits should not continue to wallow in $3.6 billion-a-year tax breaks handed them by their pals in Congress, especially after they raked in $38 billion in the first quarter of this year alone (and do tell your senators and representatives that you prefer to see such corporate welfare rerouted to environmental protection, clean energy, or other humane purposes).

With the above-mentioned contingencies in mind, following are Sierra’s most recent ratings, from the best to the worst, or top to bottom of the barrel:

To request a copy of “Can't Get the Oil Out of My Wings,” a bird's personal account of her encounter with an oil slick, contact me by clicking on "Submit your question" above. Warning: This poem features adult content and language.

May 20, 2011

The boy scout troop for which I am an assistant scoutmaster is planning a “decommissioning” of old American flags by burning them respectfully in a barrel with a ceremony. As many flags are made of polyester I wonder if there is an approved “decommissioning” that is better for the environment? —Harry, in Mercer, Pennsylvania

There is no hard-and-fast rule for disposal of worn out U.S. flags. The U.S. Flag Code simply says, “The flag, when it is in such condition that it is no longer a fitting emblem for display, should be destroyed in a dignified way, preferably by burning.” Even the American Legion doesn’t strictly demand that old flags be burned.

But at this point in history, burning may be the most undignified way to dispose of an old flag. The suggestion for respectful burning was formalized when we knew little about pollution and nothing about global warming, back in 1942 when Franklin D. Roosevelt signed the Flag Code. We now realize that burning just about anything can release toxic chemicals, dangerous "microparticulates," and global warming gases. So cremating your polyester flag turns it into a global-warming polluter, which is about as gross a form of disrespect as I can imagine. Granted, burning one flag has a minute impact, but it’s the principal of the thing—and principle is what the flag is all about.

Since the Boy Scouts have provided millions of kids, myself included, a splendid introduction to nature and conservation, I suggest using your disposal dilemma to launch a conversation with the troop about the reasons for not cremating the flag. You might suggest that reuse or recycling would be far more befitting than burning. True, the American Legion regards the flag almost as a person, and in line with the Code recommends “a proper service of tribute and memory and love” when “our Flag becomes faded and worn and must be honorably retired from life.” So some patriots would object to strips of the Stars and Stripes being recycled into a quilt, or tied to a tomato stake, or recruited as tourniquet material in the scouts’ first aid kit. Others, however, who are equally patriotic, might consider such practical applications comparable to organ donation, which seems like a generous, dignified, and humane way to honor one’s mortal remains.

The preferred day for disposal is Flag Day, June 14, so if the troop is camping out then, you could schedule whatever ceremony you deem appropriate.

To determine the offset from recycling or composting of darn near anything recyclable or compostable, see The EPA’s Waste Reduction Model (WARM) http://www.epa.gov/climatechange/wycd/waste/calculators/Warm_Form.html. Since it is geared toward municipal operations that handle tons of material, you’ll have to adjust for your volume. There are tools in this EPA site that can help you refine your calculations. For example, if you know how far your local collectors would have to go to haul material to the dump instead of recycling, you can factor this in.

As for veggies, frankly you’d be way better off spending your time busting your buns in your garden instead of wasting hours calculating its offset potential. This is because computing the offset is hopelessly complicated, since different vegetables can have different emissions factors in growing and processing, different emissions factors in different soils and climates, different shipping distances and modes of transportation, and different irrigation requirements which demand different amounts of energy to pump water, etc., etc.

To illustrate: suppose you grow 100 pounds of potatoes in your garden, and you want to find out the offset from just one of a gazillion factors: transportation. First you have to determine how far the potato field is from your food store. After a half-dozen phone calls, you manage to find out that it’s 500 miles. Assuming the potatoes are shipped in a semi truck, further research reveals that the truck gets around 6 miles per gallon hauling a fairly typical 60,000 pounds. Next, you calculate that your potatoes amount to 100/60,000 = .00167 of the load. Then you figure that a 500-mile trip would require 500/6 = 83.3 gallons of diesel fuel. Next, using the numbers above, you calculate that your potatoes' share of diesel fuel moving that load is .00167 (83.3) = .139 gallons. Next, you look up the amount of carbon dioxide emitted by burning diesel fuel, which is about 22.3 pounds per gallon, and finally you multiply 22.3 by .139, and learn, if you've done the math to this point, that your 100 pounds of potatoes will offset 3.01 pounds of transportation-related carbon dioxide. And that’s just one factor: For a comprehensive analysis, you’d also have to consider your offsets from cropping, processing, storage packaging, and retailing.

So, delving deeper into such investigations and computations could spell agricultural disaster, where you're glued to a phone and a computer while weeds invade your garden and tater-planting time passes you by ! Sometimes it’s best just to do the right thing without waiting for mathematical justification.

May 06, 2011

I volunteer at our local SPCA thrift shop and have gotten everyone into recycling (at least at the shop). But I'm not sure what is best to do with the wood products that are not suitable for resale, and so are put in the dumpster. I live on several acres and could bring them home to burn. So the question is which is worse: fill a landfill or fill the sky with smoke? --Vicki, in Brazoria, Texas

It’s probably best to send the wood products to a landfill instead of burning them. Because they are often slathered with paint, varnish, and glue, burning might release toxic chemicals into the air. Those chemicals could also damage the pollution controls in your wood stove. Since you’re obviously a conscientious environmentalist, I do assume you have an EPA-approved stove or firebox. But if you have an older, highly polluting stove or fireplace, don't burn anything in it--just replace it. For more information on how and why to get safer woodburners, see my blog, “A Very, Very Hot Topic, or ‘I Miss My Lung, Bob’ ” at http://sierraclub.typepad.com/mrgreen/2008/01/hey-mr-greenin.html

Some would argue that it’s best not to burn wood at all, because even efficient stoves still pollute much more than, say, natural gas and propane, while releasing more carbon dioxide into the air per unit of heat. But I’m less concerned about this than about the pollution from the 19 million barrels of oil we burn every day while fighting wars to keep it flowing our way, not to mention 2.6 million tons of coal per diem. When in God’s name is this country going to wake up and get a rational energy policy?

But there may be other, higher, nobler possibilities for your old wood than dumping or burning. You might try to rustle up woodcrafters, artists, or sculptors who can use those ostensibly unsalable wood items. These wizards do remarkable things with “found objects,” stuff we less creative types dismiss as utterly useless. For example, check out some of the artwork by my old friend Tony May, emeritus professor at San José State University at http://artshiftsanjose.com/?p=619 or http://tonymay.net/ Dumpster diving, curbside retrieval, and cruising thrift stores is an integral aspect of the guy’s work because it provides him with a treasure trove of raw material. (I’ve known him since the bygone days when he could leap into the tallest dumpster at a single bound.)

There’s a serious eco-message embodied in such artistic efforts: Reusing objects encourages an ethic of cherishing and conservation instead of adding to the effluvia of the modern economy, while it can also express a melancholy view of the sheer waste of said economy. A master of this sort of brilliant redeployment of cast-off material as art is Michael McMillen. You can learn more about him at http://www.huffingtonpost.com/john-seed/michael-c-mcmillen-artist_b_743942.html. As Sierra Club founder John Muir said, "all things are hitched," and for me that includes art and the enviroment.

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